We can still totally win the AL West, I mean c’mon, it’s just a 7 game deficit! So what?? We got still got a month and some change left to play baseball, this Angels club can come back to win it in that stretch, it’s not like there’s only a handful of games left in the season. Maybe if last night’s loss wasn’t so demoralizing I would be a little chippier and optimistic, but at this point I’m mentally preparing to throw in the towel and call it a season. I reckon you guys should do the same as well.
Game Notes
- Santana was unable to keep the ball rolling, recording his 1st loss after 5 consecutive wins which dropped the Angels to 7 games in the AL West. Despite being tagged with the L Santana still pitched a good game, much better then the games Chatwood and the bullpen pitched the first two games. The offense unsurprisingly gave no help to Santana, going 0-4 with RISP and recording only 2 runs of off C.J Wilson. Yeah they came up with those two runs quick, but other then that the offense was pretty sad to watch. I’m starting to sound like a broken record repeating that over and over again, but this offense doesn’t have what it takes to pull out of tight games like this. They absolutely faltered under pressure, the importance of this series has not been lost on them, and they’ve made that obvious with their inability to perform. If they can’t even split a decisive 4 game series how are they expected to win a single game in the playoffs?
- Jerome Williams made his first MLB appearance as an Angel last night, going 2/3rds of an inning and giving 2 hits and not allowing a run. Call me crazy, call me REALLY crazy, but I’m feeling the Angels might have a Ryan Vogelsong type story on their hands here. Well, it’s not really “feeling” as much as “desperately hoping” at this point, the only thing that could save the season is a surprise over the top starter. He doesn’t need to match Weaver start for start. Heck, he doesn’t even need to replicate Santana, he just needs to find a way to go out there and reel in some wins. The Angels have been quickly whittled down to 3 great starters and 2 gaping holes in the rotation. Earlier this season they had 4 great starters, Chatwood being the 4th when he was pitching gems every other start, and when Pineiro came back this rotation was looking scary. Then Pineiro dropped off majorly and Chatwood had trouble finding his comfort zone on the mound. If this were the post-season the Angels would be in a good spot with their starting rotation, unfortunately since this is in fact not the post-season the Angels have a lot of issues to work out with the pitching staff for their next playoff berth, coming in 2012.
- Napoli has finally had his comeuppance, he’s gotten his chance to spit in the face of Mike Scoiscia and the rest of the Angels community. He did it to Sosh with his interview statements and he’s done it to the rest of us with his performance against the Angels. Not only does he come back to Anaheim to destroy this ballclub, he takes the pain on the road. I know that Napoli would have never done this with the Angels simply because Scioscia would have never given him the chance, but it still hurts to see him doing so phenomenally with one of the Angels biggest rivals.
Halo A-Hole
This guy. This freakin guy. If you watched last nights game you know exactly why he’s here. In fact, if you’ve followed the Angels at all within the past few years you know why he’s here. The fact that he isn’t up here every day of the week comes as a surprise to me. Hopefully we get some kind of swift retribution regarding Kinsler and his big mouth.